Recently divorced Tessa Parker runs a successful B&B in a seaside town. During a surprise visit from Australia a long-lost aunt lets slip a family secret that unsettles her fragile world. In shock & feeling betrayed by her whole family Tessa confides in her ex- husband just as he reveals he has a new woman in his life. Struck unexpectedly by jealousy; balancing her own turmoil against the demands of parenting Tessa tries to trace her birth father with devastating results. Yet she fails to see how this is a crucial moment in her childrens lives. If she gets things wrong the consequences could be fatal. ...

The Bad Mother's Handbook is the story of a year in the lives of Charlotte Karen & Nan none of whom can quite believe how things have turned out. Why is it all so difficult? Why do the most ridiculous mistakes have the most disastrous consequences? When are you too old to throw up in a flowerbed after too much vodka? When are you too young to be a mother? Both hilarious & wise it is a clear-eyed look at motherhood
- & childhood
- in its many guises from the moment the condom breaks to the moment you file for divorce or more optimistically from the moment you hear your baby's first cry to the moment you realize that there are as many sorts of mother as there are children & that love sometimes is the most important thing of all.

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Before Yummy Mummies & Slummy Mummies before the Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother before we wondered How She Does It there was The Bad Mother's Handbook. Hundreds of thousands of readers lived a year in the life of Charlotte Karen & Nan as they struggled with becoming mothers for the first time. & now they are back. Certainly older probably not wiser & definitely as hilariously catastrophic as before. For all those who have asked How to Be a Woman here is How To Be...A Bad Mother. ...

THE SECOND PATRICK MELROSE NOVEL. Twenty-two years old & in the grip of a massive addiction Patrick Melrose is forced to fly to New York to collect his father's ashes. Over the course of a weekend Patrick's remorseless search for drugs on the avenues of Manhattan haunted by old acquaintances & insistent inner voices sends him into a nightmarish spiral. Alone in his room at the Pierre Hotel he pushes body & mind to the very edge -- desperate always to stay one step ahead of his rapidly encroaching past. This title was originally published along with Never Mind & Some Hope as part of a 3-book package also called Some Hope. ...

One wild night midwife Patty Peel is called to attend a birth on the opposite side of Liverpool. She pedals off into the storm & delivers a baby girl in a filthy slum dwelling just as the mother dies. The drunk & violent father tells Patty to get rid of it so she takes the child away meaning to deliver it to the nearest orphanage. But Patty had spent her entire childhood in an institution & cannot bear to hand the baby over. However there are rough waters ahead. Patty has few friends & fears & despises men including her next door neighbour Darky Knight so how can she hope to bring up the child alone? She has no idea how the baby will affect the attitude of those around her nor how her life will change as a result... The Bad Penny is a heartwarming tale of love & courage in hard times from the hugely popular storyteller Katie Flynn. ...

It's rare that a book appears with a fresh perspective on world affairs but renowned economist Ha-Joon Chang has some startlingly original things to say about the future of globalization. In theory he argues the world's wealthiest countries & supra-national institutions like the IMF World Bank & WTO want to see all nations developing into modern industrial societies. In practice though those at the top are 'kicking away the ladder' to wealth that they themselves climbed. Why? Self-interest certainly plays a part. But more often rich & powerful governments & institutions are actually being ' Bad Samaritans': their intentions are worthy but their simplistic free-market ideology & poor understanding of history leads them to inflict policy errors on others. Chang demonstrates this by contrasting the route to success of economically vibrant countries with the very different route now being dictated to the world's poorer nations. In the course of this he shows just how muddled the thinking is in such key areas as trade & foreign investment. He shows that the case for privatisation & against state involvement is far from proven. & he explores the ways in which attitudes to national cultures & political ideologies are obscuring clear thinking & creating bad policy. Finally he argues the case for new strategies for a more prosperous world that may appall the ' Bad Samaritans'. ...

Ben Goldacre's wise & witty bestseller shortlisted for the Samuel Johnson Prize lifts the lid on quack doctors flaky statistics scaremongering journalists & evil pharmaceutical corporations. Since 2003 Dr Ben Goldacre has been exposing dodgy medical data in his popular Guardian column. In this eye-opening book he takes on the MMR hoax & misleading cosmetics ads acupuncture & homeopathy vitamins & mankind's vexed relationship with all manner of 'toxins'. Along the way the self-confessed ' Johnny Ball cum Witchfinder General' performs a successful detox on a Barbie doll sees his dead cat become a certified nutritionist & probes the supposed medical qualifications of ' Dr' Gillian Mc Keith. Full spleen & satire Ben Goldacre takes us on a hilarious invigorating & ultimately alarming journey through the bad science we are fed daily by hacks & quacks. ...

Nominated for the Samuel Johnson Prize. We are constantly bombarded with inaccurate contradictory & sometimes misleading information
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Orphaned by an act of senseless violence that took their mother from them half-brothers Clarence Luckman & Elliott Danziger have been raised in state institutions unaware of any world outside. But their lives take a sudden turn when they are seized as hostages by a convicted killer en route to death row. Earl Sheridan is a psychopath of the worst kind but he has the potential to change the boys' lives for ever. As the trio set off on a frenetic escape from the law through California & Texas the two brothers must come to terms with the ever-growing tide of violence that follows in their wake
- something that forces them to make a choice about their lives & their relationship to one another.
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Three ambitious rivalrous sisters. & a deadly secret which one of them is determined to keep buried at any cost.. . Deeley is the fake wife of a Hollywood TV hunk who is secretly gay. But Deeley's five-year contract is up & his cut-throat publicist wants Deeley out. So dejected & penniless Deeley wends her way home to London hoping to re-establish links with her two estranged elder sisters.. . Devon is married to the nation's-favourite-rugby-hunk Matt & has her own highly successful TV career as the sexy hostess of her own cookery show. But behind her buxom facade Devon is lonely & frustrated & when a live celebrity cook-off shows her up as a fraud she leaves sweet Matt & runs off to Tuscany to learn a few lessons
- not just in cookery
- from an Italian master. Lastly there's Maxie: a politician's wife Maxie is fiercely ambitious. She's furious when Deeley hard on her luck sells the sisters' childhood story to a tabloid newspaper revealing their impoverished roots & unsavoury parentage. The story undermines Maxie's carefully cultivated image & the fallout threatens to be devastating. But Maxie is only too aware that there is much more Deeley could yet reveal. What murderous secret lies in the sisters' past? & just how far will Maxie go to keep it buried?

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